Ireland – education
In Ireland, education usually provided by state-sponsored, often Catholic institutions, is traditionally a matter for parents and the church. As a result, it is regulated to a lesser extent than in other industrialized countries. There is compulsory education from 6.-15. years, but most children begin school at the age of four. There is also no public preschool. 82% (1992) continue their education after the end of compulsory education.
After the eight-year primary school, it is continued for up to six years in either independent schools, self-employed vocational schools that also offer vocational schools, comprehensive schools or local community schools. This teaching, which in some of these school forms is divided into two levels, a three-year junior school and a two-year senior school, can from 1992, after three years of teaching in all school forms, be completed with the Junior Certificate. Only as late as 1967 was student pay abolished in secondary schools.
The country has four universities, the 400-year-old, highly esteemed University of Dublin Trinity College, as well as a large number of other higher education institutions.
OFFICIAL NAME: Poblacht na hÉireann (Republic of Ireland), off. name: Éire
CAPITAL CITY: Dublin
POPULATION: 4,600,000 (Source: COUNTRYaah)
AREA: 68,895 km²
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE (S): Irish, English
RELIGION: Catholics 92%, Anglicans 2%, others 6%
COIN: Euro
CURRENCY CODE: EUR
ENGLISH NAME: Republic of Ireland
INDEPENDENCE: 1921
POPULATION COMPOSITION: Irish nationals 99%, others 1%
GDP PER residents: $ 48,939 (2015)
LIFE EXPECTANCY: men 76 years, women 81 years (2007)
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, HDI: 0.916
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, POSITION: 6
INTERNET DOMAIN NAME: .ie
Ireland is the Irish Republic, republic located on the island of the same name – the second largest of the British Isles, bounded on the east by the Irish Sea and the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The Republic of Ireland, as described here, occupies territorially 84% of the total area of the island of Ireland of 82,378 km2; the remaining 16% is Northern Ireland, which is an autonomous part of the United Kingdom.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Find two-letter abbreviation for each independent country and territory, such as IE which stands for Ireland.
The mild, rainy climate and the large areas of permanent pastures have given the island the nickname The Green Island.
The island of Ireland has been culturally and commercially dominated by England for centuries, with a socio-economic and religious conflict surface ensuing between native Irish and immigrant Scots and English. In 1921, the conflict led to the creation of the Irish Free State, which did not include Northern Ireland. However, there is still strong Irish dissatisfaction with a divided Ireland.
Ireland – Constitution and political system
The Constitution of 1937 proclaims that it covers the whole island, but at the same time states that laws etc. until any reunification applies only to the former Irish Free State. The Republic of Ireland was officially proclaimed in 1949 in connection with the country’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations.
The president is elected by direct suffrage for a term of seven years and occupies first and foremost a ceremonial role. Legislative power lies with the parliament, which consists of the president and two chambers. The House of Representatives (Dáil Éireann) has 166 members, who are elected by direct proportional representation for five years; The Senate (Seanad Éireann) has 60 members, 11 of whom are appointed by the Prime Minister, six are elected by the universities and the remaining 43 are elected from five lists of candidates from the fields of culture, agriculture and fisheries, the workforce (both organized and disorganized), industry and trade as well as public administration and social services, etc. The Senate receives bills from the House of Representatives and has 90 days to consider and amend. It cannot veto.
The executive power lies with the government, which is headed by the Prime Minister, who is appointed by the President on a proposal from the House of Representatives. The other ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the House of Representatives.
Ireland – political parties
Ireland’s political parties are rooted in the political division that arose after the conclusion of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6.12.1921. The two largest parties, the Republican-populist Fianna Fáil, founded in 1926 by the original opponent of the treaty Eamon De Valera, and the social liberal Fine Gael, formed in 1933 by supporters of the treaty, therefore draw votes across social divides. The somewhat smaller Labor Party is rooted in the historically less significant labor movement, but has since the mid-1980’s, together with the small party The Progressive Democrats, obtained votes from the urban middle class. Two other smaller parties are the Green Party and the Left Republican Party Sinn Féin.
Ireland – Management
The local government consists of 29 county councils and 85 city councils of various kinds. All council members are elected by proportional representation, usually every five years. All residents of the area over the age of 18 who are included on the electoral roll have the right to vote.
Local management tasks are housing and construction policy, roads and road safety, water supply and sewerage, development policy, environment, agriculture, education, health care and welfare. The tasks have increasingly been transferred from smaller administrative units to the better-equipped county councils in terms of resources.
The local government is divided, as the elected members are the decision-making body regarding. setting local taxes, raising loans, adopting development plans and setting local rules, while employed county council directors perform all the tasks not expressly reserved for the elected representatives, as well as being in charge of the administration of the other local administrative units.
Ireland – Judicial system
Ireland’s legal system has since the 1100’s. been governed by English law. However, since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921, developments have moved in a more independent direction, especially under the influence of Irish nationalism and the Catholic Church. The Constitution of 1937, for example, recognizes the family as the primary unit of society with rights that precede all positive law. The criminal justice system is still based on common law, although with a number of significant modifications and special statutes. Since 1973, Ireland’s legal system has been affected by EU membership.
The judiciary includes the Supreme Court, which is the appellate body of the High Court, which has a general jurisdiction, and in some cases the Court of Criminal Appeal; in addition, there are eight Circuit Courts and 23 District Courts, all of which hear both civil and criminal cases.
Ireland (Military)
The Armed Forces is (2006) at 10,460. The Army is at 8500, the Navy 1100 and the Air Force 860. The reserve is at 14,875. The armament of the armies is light, and the composition of the army effectively limits its tasks to peacekeeping operations, support for sovereignty, and support for the police; it reflects that there is no threat of invasion of the country.
Ireland – Economy
Ireland has a small open economy, which has traditionally been strongly oriented towards the UK. It was therefore natural for the two countries to join the EC in 1973. At that time, Ireland was characterized by a low standard of living, with GDP per capita. per capita was less than 60% of the Community average and there was high unemployment and significant emigration.
Since the early 1980’s, economic policy has been geared towards ensuring low inflation and balance in public budgets, which after a severe crisis had shown such large deficits that it threatened to undermine confidence in the state’s ability to pay. Fiscal policy was tightened in 1982-86 through higher income taxes, while the strategy since then has been to expand the tax base, while at the same time reducing the expenditure budget.
Exchange rate policy changed radically in 1979, when Ireland joined the EMS, while Britain chose to stay out; this meant a break with more than 150 years of tying the Irish punt to the pound sterling. As the United Kingdom at that time accounted for almost half of Ireland’s foreign trade, the changeover was not without problems, and the punt has had to be written down several times within the EMS, thus by 10% in 1992.
Since a favorable export situation in the late 1980’s boosted the economy, Ireland has experienced the highest growth of EU countries. GDP grew by approximately 10% per year in the period 1995-2000 and then by approximately 5%.
In 1997, Irish GDP per capita reached per capita up to the EU average, and in 2005 the country was in global fifth place (after Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland; Denmark was in sixth place).
The reasons for this growth, which has given Ireland the nickname “the Celtic tiger”, include contributions from the EU Structural Funds, investment in education and a sharp reduction in corporate taxes (to 10%), which was followed by large investments from the US and Japan in particular., which thus gained duty-free access to the EU market.
Ireland’s industrial sector thus increased to almost half of the economy and now dominates exports completely. The most important new industries were computers, software and medicine. The service sector also experienced growth with the establishment of call centers (telephone service) and increasing tourism.
Developments have enabled a strong improvement in public finances. The budget deficit in relation to GDP was thus approximately 13% in the early 1980’s, but was settled during the 1990’s, and public sector debt had fallen to 27% of GDP in 2005 from almost 120% in 1986.
Ireland thus had no difficulty in complying with public finance convergence requirements for participation in EMU in 1999, and in 2002 the pound was replaced by the euro. Unemployment was still in 1996 at approximately 15%, but fell around 2000 to a fairly stable level of approximately 5%. This was instrumental in reversing the traditional flow of emigration.
Ireland has a large trade surplus, but a balance of payments deficit. The main trading partners are the EU (about 60% of trade) and the United States. Denmark’s exports to Ireland in 2005 amounted to DKK 7.4 billion. DKK, while imports amounted to 5.1 billion. Trade is dominated both ways by chemical and pharmaceutical products as well as machinery.
Ireland – social conditions
The backbone of the Irish social security system is a series of social insurances covering loss of income due to old age, illness, maternity, disability and unemployment. Membership of these insurance schemes is mandatory for employees, and the schemes are financed through contributions from the insured themselves, their employers and the state. Groups of self-employed persons also have access to membership of the insurance policies.
Retirement pension is granted to persons who have reached the age of 66, even if they continue to work. The pension scheme differs from similar schemes in most other European countries in that the amount paid out is independent of current and past income. Other cash benefits are also provided according to this unconditional benefit principle.
Outside the insurance schemes, ie. directly paid by the state, the long-term unemployed can receive an early retirement pension without health-related conditions from the age of 55. Within the insurance system, there are various forms of health-related disability pension, depending on e.g. the cause of the loss of ability to work.
The unemployment insurance is administered by the state employment service. Unemployment benefits are granted after three days of unemployment and are generally given for a maximum of 65 weeks; rates shall be reduced however by 1/2 years.
Ireland (Health conditions)
Judging from life expectancy, Ireland, together with Denmark and Portugal, is at the bottom of the EU; for women it is 78.2 years and for men 72.6. The mortality rate in the first year of life is 6.7 per 1000. Heart disease is the most common cause of death and affects men twice as often as women with resp. 311 and 147 pr. 100,000 pr. year. Cardiac mortality has been steadily declining for both sexes since 1974, but remains the highest in the EU. As in Denmark, breast cancer is a relatively frequent cause of death with approximately 40 pr. 100,000 pr. years and with a slightly increasing trend. Mortality from lung cancer has been declining slightly for men since 1985, while for women it has been stable. In 1992, 30% of the adult population smoked. The annual alcohol consumption per. per capita was stated in 1992 at just over 8 l, well below the EU average.
Ireland spends 7.4% of GDP (1994) on health care, down from 8% in 1980. approximately 75% of this goes to a state-organized health service and ensures the majority of the population free medical care incl. hospital stays. The most affluent pay for medical care themselves and part of the cost of hospital stays. In 1993, the country had 1.7 doctors per 1000 residents and almost four times as many nurses. In 1992, there were 5.6 hospital beds per. 1000 residents, about the same as in Denmark. Check youremailverifier for Ireland social condition facts.
Abortion legislation
Provoked abortion was totally banned until 1982. An amendment to the constitution this year opened up a modest possibility of performing provoked abortion by allowing it if the pregnant woman’s life was threatened. Irish women have for several years taken the opportunity to travel to the UK, where provoked abortion is legal. In 1992, a court banned a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant after a rape from traveling there in order to abortion. By a 3-2 decision, the Supreme Court overturned the ban on the grounds that the girl was suicidal. In a later similar case, a court allowed the girl to travel, regardless of whether the parents objected to the girl being able to have an abortion. Following extensive committee work, a proposal to revise the rules on provoked abortion came to a referendum in the spring of 2002. The most controversial element was a tightening of the rules so that suicide risk could no longer be a legal justification for having an abortion. The proposal was rejected by 50.4% of the votes cast, but in large parts of Ireland there was a majority in favor of the proposal.
Ireland – mass media
The first newspaper published regularly in Ireland was An Account of the Chief Occurrences of Ireland (grdl. 1659). From the middle of the 1700’s. a large group of newspapers emerged, Belfast News Letter (grdl. 1734), still existing as the Unionist News Letter. The first single-issue newspaper was The Irish Times (Grdl. 1859).
The Irish Independent came out in 1905 and has become Ireland’s largest newspaper with a circulation of 164,000 (2005). In 1931, Eamon De Valera founded the newspaper The Irish Press, which was published until 1995 with two everyday editions and a Sunday edition.
Party affiliation has not been prevalent among the Irish newspapers, but the Roman Catholic Church has had considerable influence. Ireland has more than 90 local newspapers, most of which are family-owned independent weekly newspapers.
The radio (grdl. 1926) and the television (grdl. 1961) are merged into Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), which is financed by license and advertising revenue. A nationwide commercial radio station, Radio Ireland (Grdl. 1997), competes with RTE.
There is a lot of attention on the Irish language radio, Raidió na Gaeltachta, and television, Teilifís na Gaeilge (Grdl. 1996), both of which are to promote the Irish language and culture. In addition, there are approximately 21 independent radio stations throughout the country. British mass media is widespread in Ireland.
Ireland – visual arts and architecture
Ireland – Visual Arts and Architecture, Middle Ages
Early Irish art was heavily influenced by Celtic art. The country was Christianized as early as the 5th century, and Christianity and Celtic culture manifested themselves in a rich and original form of expression, especially in the field of sculpture, book painting and handicrafts that flourished around the monasteries.
Within the sculpture, the characteristic stone cross was developed with a circle around the cross-section, standing on a pyramid-shaped base. Both the cross and the base were richly ornamented, later also with carved figures in relief.
The earliest European book painting originates from Ireland, to which it is believed to have been introduced in the 6th century by Coptic monks. Among the major works is the Book of Durrow from the second half of the 600’s with the four gospels; it is the first time one sees the left book side designed solely as ornaments.
The most famous illuminated manuscript is the Book of Kells from approximately 800, having ornaments on all but two sides; in addition, a stylized portrait of Jesus and narrative scenes from his life are seen.
Both manuscripts are found at Trinity College Dublin, while the Book of Lindisfarne (The Lindisfarne Gospels) from approximately 700 are at the British Museum.
A refined animal, spiral and ribbon loop ornamentation spreads on the book pages as well as on the many liturgical objects of gold and silver, which in the 800’s and 900’s became the prey of the looting Vikings and thereby contributed to the spread of this ornamentation.
A special Irish contribution to the architecture are the tall, round towers, often erected to fortify the churches. Today, the monasteries are in ruins, while the churches of Christ Church and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral bear witness to the late medieval architecture.
Ireland – Visual Arts and Architecture – 1750-2010
The English conquest and colonization of Ireland slowed the further development of a special Irish art from the late Middle Ages. In connection with the economic boom of the second half of the 1700’s, depicted by the British painter Francis Wheatley (1747-1801), the aesthetic ideals of the colonial elite permeated partly on the manors of the large landowners, eg Castletown and Strokestown House, partly in Dublin, which got its Georgian, neoclassical streets, squares and public buildings such as Merrion Square, Leinster House and Custom House. English landscape aesthetics came to similarly shape Irish painting well into the 1800’s. through painters such as Nathaniel Hone dy (1831-1917) and Walter Osborne (1859-1903).
From the mid-1800’s. however, the painting gained a more social-realistic and national character, as is seen, for example, in John Keating (1880-1977). Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957) added the first symbolist and modernist features to Irish art. But for social and political reasons, modernism only gradually broke through after 1945 with internationally renowned artists such as Norah McGuinness (1901-80) and Francis Bacon.
Since the early 1980’s, however, the visual arts have developed strongly. In 1991, Ireland acquired a Museum of Modern Art, which in Dublin complements the older collections of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. A decentralization of cultural policy has led to a flourishing of visual arts and crafts in the local areas, for example through the establishment of regional art centers.
Ireland – literature
Irish literature in Irish/Gaelic dates back to 600-700-t., While English-language Irish literature after sporadic occurrence since 1200-t. became dominant from the English colonization of Ireland in the 1600’s.
Irish literature in Gaelic
The oldest Irish literature bears the mark of being written down in the monasteries, although the substance is often pre-Christian. Motifs such as tragic love, eg in the story of Deirdre and Naoise, and the fantastic journey, eg Imram Maíle Dúin (Máel Dúin’s journey), were early main motifs in Irish literature.
The ravages of the Vikings halted for a time a richly flourishing and orally handed down literary tradition, but works such as Flann Mainistrech’s (1000-1056) historical poems and legends about famous places, dinnshenchas, are evidence of continued considerable literary activity.
Heroes and scolds
The epic-realistic tales of Ulster’s kings and heroes, such as Cú Chulainn, constituted a significant and productive tradition right up to the 1100’s. In the classical period of Irish literature, from approximately 1170 – with the increasing continental European influence of the Anglo-Normans – until the 1600’s, a relatively standardized literary language and a verse based on the syllable were established.
The literature was professionalized around filidh, i.e. poets who provided tribute and occasional poems to their masters and who formalized and institutionalized the art of poetry. Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh (1320-87) was considered the greatest of them all in a highly respected and lucrative profession.
In particular, Filidh continued to compose mythical material in a romantic-lyrical register about the warriors (‘fiann’) around Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his son Oisín (in English Ossian). The most significant early fiann poetry circle is Agallamh na Seanórach (The Old Men’s Speech) from approximately 1150, which continues in the tradition of dinnshenchas with the geography of Ireland as the structuring principle and with the linking of pagan and Christian elements.
With the English colonization of Ireland in the mid-1600’s. overthrew the aristocratic-feudal shield tradition. The last big name was Aogán Ó Rathaille. He used the prescriptive and song-based verse target based on print (amhrán), which was now displacing the syllable-based.
Literature in Gaelic continued to be cultivated, but increasingly as a marginalized cultural heritage in the form of the dialectally influenced folk and oral narrative traditions from the Gaeltachts, ie. Gaelic-speaking areas. Tomás Ó Criomhthains (1856-1937) An tOileánach (The Island) from 1929 is considered the culmination of the Gaeltacht culture.
The Irish Renaissance
However, it was not until the Irish Renaissance (The Gaelic League was founded by Douglas Hyde in 1893) that a conscious effort was made to ensure a living Gaelic literature in both short stories (Liam O’Flaherty), novels (Peadar Ó Laoghaire, 1839- 1920), drama (Douglas Hyde) and poetry (Patrick Pearse).
However, the preservation of Gaelic as a culturally rooted artistic means of expression has had difficult conditions under the strong influence of English.
Irish literature in English
Anglo-Irish literature is closely linked to English. The language community and the Anglo-Irish writers’ orientation towards Protestant London and not Catholic Dublin as the cultural and political focal point are significant explanations for this.
When the London theaters reopened in 1660 after the Puritan interregnum, the writers of the new drama spoke many Anglo-Irish, but apart from “the stage Irishman” – a drunken, furious, generous, eloquent and sentimental character type – there was nothing particularly Irish in the witty seat comedies by George Farquhar (1677-1707), William Congreve and Richard Sheridan.
While the universe of contemporary acting reflected the world of the aristocracy, a political literature under construction was under the impression of both a party-oriented development in England and the general dynamics of the Enlightenment.
Protestant priest Jonathan Swift wrote refined neoclassical satires for deliberate reform purposes and aimed at English colonizers, while Laurence Sterne cultivated the taste for the sensitive in his highly individualistic prose and Edmund Burke engaged in political philosophy.
Anglo-Irish literature dates from the mid-1700’s. of two trends. The critique of English colonial rule, which had been the subject of Swift’s satirical writing, continued in novels by, for example, Maria Edgeworth, who sought to gain attention for the exhaustion of Irish society. The second trend was the interest in carrying on the old Irish tradition in the English language.
Irish tradition in English
Translation of ancient Gaelic texts, such as Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789), prepared the Irish Renaissance so that towards the end of the 1800’s. a literary synthesis of the two cultures emerged, clearly in George Moore’s tales The Untilled Field (1903) and in William B. Yeats’ program play Countess Cathleen (1899).
The theater movement, which found a permanent home with The Abbey Theater in Dublin in 1904, became the great bearer of the breakthrough along with the general national self-esteem that had had its main mouthpiece in the newspaper The Nation (grdl. 1842).
Plays by JM Sing and Lady Augusta Gregory used traditional Irish material, while Irish-born Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw dominated London theaters with plays whose Irish character is evident in the tradition of witty wordplay and rhetorical manipulation already dominated by the playwrights of the Restoration era. so superb.
For Irish writers such as George Russell (“AE”) and James Stephens, the Irish cultural heritage and concurrent political situation provided an incentive to test the text’s liberties in terms of both subject and style, whereas James Joyce preferred to leave an Ireland which, according to his meaning showed neither the ability nor the will to move forward.
Voluntary alienation was also preferred by prose writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in many ways James Joyce’s heir to linguistic experimentation, but with a view of life based on the assumption of existential meaninglessness as opposed to James Joyce’s indomitable optimism.
Modern Irish literature
Ireland’s volatile history offers a dramatic political, religious and social conflict that characterizes virtually all recent Irish literature. While the linguistically experimental novel culminated with James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Flann OBrien, prose fiction in its realistic form has continued to explore conditions for human coexistence in a dramatically changing nation, such as Elizabeth Bowen and William Trevor.
Irish drama has continued its tradition of linguistic resilience and the unification of the local Irish with the universal human. In the 1920’s, Seán O’Casey successfully used expressionist means, and Samuel Beckett has in plays such as Waiting for Godot (from 1952, eng. 1954) reduced his life to quite a few clues.
William B. Yeats’ significance for modern Irish poetry lies first and foremost in his combination of elements from Irish cultural tradition with trends in contemporary international literature. After William B. Yeats, the lyricism was dominated by the form-fitting Austin Clarke (1896-1974) and Patrick Kavanagh, whose long poem “The Great Hunger” is considered a masterpiece of contemporary Ireland.
For Seamus Heaney, there is a close connection between the personal experience, the country’s changeable history, the current tense political situation and the connection to history through the local, while Eavan Boland (b. 1945) uses an explicit feminist perspective and Paul Muldoon connects to international, postmodern currents in his virtuoso games with words and concepts.
Ireland – Theater
The first theaters in Ireland were built as early as the 1600’s; best known is Smock Alley (1662). Until the 1880’s, only a few permanent theaters existed; there were also traveling English troupes, and Irish theater was English-inspired. The actor Robert Oweson (1744-1812) established in 1784 a national theater, which, however, closed two years later. In 1899, Lady Gregory and WB Yeats formed the Irish Literary Theater destined for the Irish repertoire. The ensemble was English, but it was transformed in 1902 into a national theater. In 1904, through the AEF Horniman (1860-1937), it got its own building in Dublin, and the National Theater Abbey Theaterwas a reality. The Abbey Theater was destroyed by fire in 1951, but was rebuilt in 1966, and together with the Gate Theater (1928) and the Little Pike Theater (1954) it has been the hotbed of modern Irish theater.
Ireland (Folk Music)
The term Irish folk music covers a number of very different old and newer musical expressions, several of which are only indirectly based on the Irish tradition. About music with clear roots in this, the term traditional music is preferred in Ireland.
Although Ireland is the Western European country that has best preserved an unbroken tradition, only a little of the original, Gaelic-speaking Irish music has been preserved. The oldest is without a doubt the unaccompanied sean nós song (‘song in the old style’) with its strange modal tonality and strong ornamentation. These musical elements are found in traditional dance music, although the popular Irish dance jigs, reels and hornpipes are hardly older than the late 1600’s. and not originally Irish.
In a tradition which, in spite of the small extent of the country, can show considerable stylistic variations, the violin and the sophisticated, bellows-blown Irish bagpipes uillean pipes in particular stand out. The last of the great harpists, Turlough Carolan (1670-1738), left behind a number of compositions that are still played, but the Irish national symbol has never been a popular instrument and has only nowadays had a renaissance.
In a culture that for centuries was threatened with extinction, music and dance remained important expressions, and with mass emigration in the late 1800’s. Irish folk music was brought to America, where in the first decades of the 1900’s. gained great popularity through musicians such as the violinist James Morrison (1891-1947). It was also an “Irish-American” group, The Clancy Brothers, which, based on folk revival and a repertoire of newer, English-language ballads, gave Irish folk music a modern international breakthrough. The success was confirmed at home and in the rest of Europe by The Dubliners.
In the mid-1970’s, the successors were ready in the form of more instrumentally oriented groups, which was inspired by the serious composer Seán Ó Riada’s (1931-71) experiments in giving traditional music a contemporary expression. The musicians of Planxty, Bothy Band and De Dannan, including the singers Mary Black (b. 1955), Dolores Keane (b. 1953) and Christy Moore (b. 1945), have since shaped the new Irish folk music, which from the mid-1980’s’ have experienced a large influx of young instrumentalists also outside Ireland’s borders. In addition, Irish traditional music is now heard as an integral element in other musical genres, and in the 1990’s, Irish dance also gained great international popularity and popularity.
Ireland (Popular Music)
Like the rest of Europe, Irish popular music until the 1960’s was dominated by dance orchestras that predominantly played versions of popular songs of the time. But a generation of young musicians then began to mark themselves as a more independent counterpart to these orchestras, often with inspiration in black American blues and soul; groups such as Taste, led by guitarist Rory Gallagher (1949-95), and Northern Irish Them, with singer Van Morrison, came to form school for several Irish groups. Influences from Jimi Hendrix and the psychedelic music of the late 1960’s also permeated, among other things. with the group Thin Lizzywith guitarist and singer Phil Lynott (1951-86) as the driving force. A budding awareness among young musicians about traditional Irish music also had some influence, for example with Horslips, Sweeney’s Men and Dr. Strangely Strange, but through the 1970’s, Irish rock music was largely influenced by what was popular on the English and American stages, and only a few groups had commercial and artistic success in fusing elements of rock music and their own cultural background, such as Moving Hearts managed it in the first half of the 1980’s. The multi-instrumentalist from here, Donal Lunny (b. 1947), has since been very active with a fruitful fusion of many musical elements.
Groups such as The Boomtown Rats, which from the late 1970’s reflected the English punk and new wave scene, also enjoyed some success beyond the borders of Ireland, while the group U2, with declared roots in Irish culture and great success right from the start in 1980, has given Irish rock music an identity abroad. Since the mid-1980’s, a number of singers in particular, often with a background in folk music, have drawn the large, more central-looking part of Irish rock music, e.g. Sinéad O’Connor, Enya, solo as well as in the group Clannad, and Eleanor Shanley, as well as groups with combinations of Irish, Scottish and English musicians, such as The Pogues and Waterboys, have influenced Irish rock music in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Next to rock music is the Irish ballad tradition, which has managed to develop into the archetype of a modern ballad, as evidenced in particular by the fact that Ireland has won the European Melody Grand Prix seven times until 1997 (1970, 1980, 1987, 1992- 94 and 1996).
Ireland – music
Ireland has for centuries been influenced by both England and other European countries. From 1733, for example, the Italian Francesco Geminiani stayed in Dublin several times, and here Georg Friedrich Handel’s oratorio Messiah was premiered in 1742. Among Irish-born composers, John Field is known as the author of the one-piece character piece for piano, the nocturn. He seemed, however, similar to Charles Standford, mostly outside the country’s borders.
Irish radio has two symphony orchestras, a choir and a string quartet, and Dublin and other cities form the setting for various music festivals.
